Solo tensed, desperately ordering his arm to fling upward — but knowing in advance that it wasn’t going to do it.
VII
Solo heard the rustle of movement, the sudden shout of warning. For a split second he lay still, then his legs moved, and he twisted to one side. He swung his arm upward, and the tingling sensation of returning life flushed through him.
He saw the knife striking downward. But contact was never made. Illya lunged through the air in an impossibly long tackle. He did it expertly, too, Solo saw, because to hit Barbry and drive her down upon him would send that knife into him with an impact Barbry could never manage alone.
But Illya struck low, driving upward from the balls of his feet. His driving tackle carried Barbry forward and up, sending her sailing across Solo’s body to the tiled flooring beyond him.
It was a near thing, but it was a complete miss. She struck face down, sliding some feet, losing the knife so that it clattered away almost to the wall.
Illya landed on top of Solo, rolling across him. Solo saw that his wrists and his shirt were streaked with his blood, but his hands and arms were free.
Solo spoke at once, putting the danger from Barbry and her knife from his mind, computing ahead, forcing himself to remain cool. He could move his head now, and his gaze located the lens of the closed-circuit camera in the far wall.
Before Illya could pull himself around, Solo was speaking to him in a low tone: “The camera eye is directly across there, high in the wall. If you smash it, the control room will know it instantly.”
Illya was on his feet. His gaze found the camera eye.
He crossed the room, shoving a chair to the wall. Standing on the chair, he placed his hand over the lens and then calmly unscrewed it from the camera. Turning it around, he jammed it hard back into the aperture.
He leaped off the chair.
Solo said, “Illya. Stop her.”
Barbry had pulled herself to her feet. Still moving in that halting robot’s motion, she crossed to the wall and retrieved the knife.
“A lady with one-way mind,” Illya said.
He strode across the room. She stared vacantly at him. He tried to take the knife, but she resisted. He caught her wrist and twisted it, removing the knife from her grasp. Her face showed no pain.
“She’s disarmed,” Illya said across his shoulder. “But I’m afraid she still has murder on her mind.”
Solo was sitting up now. He was not sure that he could stand, or that his legs would support him if he made it, but tension and rage had sent blood pulsing through his body, nullifying the effects of the paralyzing gas.
He pulled himself up by clinging to a table, exploring the slow, confused return of his sensations. His skin tingled as a hand or fingers might, held too long in one position, or if the circulation were cut off.
He stood shakily, like a newborn colt, clinging to the highly polished blond table.
He heard the continued whine of the elevator, the rumbling through the earth and the foundations of the building.
He straightened as a woup-woup whistling of the warning sirens flared, and then continued through the building. He knew the wrecked closed-circuit TV camera had created this warning. Undoubtedly word was already being called to DeVry and Su Yan below them. “Illya,” Solo said, keeping the warning sounds out of his thought processes. “Help me.”
Illya ran to him. Solo jerked his head toward the gas cylinders.
Solo was able to move only with a slow, shuffling walk that enraged him.
He forced himself to speak calmly, but inside he was shaking desperately with the fear of failure even when he’d been given this last chance.
“Three gas masks from that cabinet, Illya. A machine pistol from there. Watch that door. If it opens, start firing, and keep firing until it closes — no matter who it is.”
Illya nodded.
Solo pulled free and half-fell against the wall where the rubber tubing which had carried the nerve gas to him still lay. He picked up the tubing, disconnected it from the cylinder of nerve gas, and reconnected it to one of a simple anesthetic gas. Then he ran the rubber tubing up the wall to the air conditioning duct.
Illya broke open the cabinets. He tossed a gas mask to Solo, pulled one over his own head. With a machine pistol under his arm, he crossed the room to where Barbry stood as though dazed, or walking in her sleep.
Solo waited only until the mask was being pulled down over Barbry’s head. He turned the cut-on valve of the anesthetic cylinder to full.
He stared at the gauge, seeing the needle flash across it, and danger lights flare red. The lights he ignored, just as he ignored the increased woup-woup of the warning whistles.
The faint whispering of an opening door struck him and he turned at the moment Illya, on his knees, pressed the trigger of the machine pistol.
Two guards were already running into the room. The machine-pistol bucked, and they crumpled forward, still running after they were already dead.
Shuffling, pulling himself along the cabinets, Solo armed himself. The door was pulled closed.
“Don’t try to wait for me,” Solo told Illya. “Try to stop that elevator — even if you have to detonate their bomb.”
He saw Illya nod inside his gas mask.
Illya gave Barbry a shove. She stumbled, moving toward Solo. He caught her, gripping her arm with his left hand.
Illya stepped over the bodies of the dead guards. He emptied the machine pistol into the electrically controlled lock mechanism of the door. It swung open like the broken wing of a bird.
Illya tossed the emptied machine pistol behind him.
Solo tossed him two new guns, and Illya went through the door into the corridor. The woup-wouping whistle was increased ten times with the thick door hanging open.
Through the din, Solo heard the rasping fire of the machine pistol outside the door.
He heard DeVry’s voice blaring on the suddenly activated building intercom. “Proceed! Proceed! Proceed! Do not stop for anything! Proceed with the plan as scheduled! Do not stop! Proceed! Proceed!”
There was wildness in his voice, and frustration, and the brittle wail of insanity as the anesthetic gas spread through the air-conditioning and men hesitated in what they were doing, paused, stopped, and sank to the floor unconscious.
DeVry’s voice persisted.
The intercom crackled with his commands, with his shouting, his cursing, his sobbing.
Solo grabbed Barbry’s arm, dragging her after him. He stared at her face through the plastic face-shield of her mask. Her violet eyes remained staring, drugged. He talked to her savagely, knowing she was not hearing him, but himself gathering some strength from bullying her into following him from the room.
In the corridor outside, Illya was the first person he saw. The young agent held his machine pistol at ready, but Solo saw in his face through the mask that Illya was lost.
“The elevators,” Solo said. “The one marked private must go down to the underground lab.”
“Come on,” Illya said. “We’ll go together. There’s time now. The gas has hit this place hard.”
Solo moved with him, still shuffling, still dragging Barbry after him. He saw men slumped against the walls, lying on the flooring, some of them with guns fallen from their limp hands.
He saw something else. This was Illya’s show from this moment. He could shuffle along in his wake, he could fire his machine pistol, he could find their way through the maze of floors and corridors — but only Illya could move with any speed.
They reached the elevators. DeVry’s voice was weaker, but his wails were higher-pitched. Illya pressed the button on the elevator marked Private. When it whirred to a stop, its doors parting, they saw two guards slumped on the cage flooring, guns beside them.